Desert Trilogy

Summary

Three "new weird" or "slipstream" stories set in the desert. All three explore relationships between men and women, with the desert backdrop providing just enough strangeness to push their interactions to the edge. If you enjoyed Hari Kunzru's Gods Without Men, you might enjoy these. "Chill Out": Is now the right time for Brad and Amy to have kids? Brad wants to start a family right away, but Amy wants to focus on her writing career. Will a drive in the desert help them settle the argument? "Glass": Derek can't understand his hiking partners' objections to his Google Glass. But alienating friends isn't the only danger of his obsession with Augmented Reality."What I Did for Love": Dave is a journeyman carpenter. Now he needs to drill a hole in his girlfriend's head. Does he have the nerve to finish the job?

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Desert Trilogy - Lawrence Hogue

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Glass

Derek looked up at Lisa from the bottom of the dry waterfall. As the best climber, he had descended first and now stood on the sandy canyon floor, ready to spot his two companions.

What? he asked.

Your Google glasses.

It’s called Google Glass. 2.0 to be exact. No one could ever get that right. Why?

Because I never know what you’re doing with those things. I don’t want you live-casting my ass to the world while I’m climbing.

What, don’t you trust me?

He grinned, but she just stared down at him. He supposed he deserved it. She’d been pissed when he posted that conversation. She and a friend were being drunk and silly at a bar. Derek thought they were funny. So did a couple thousand people who watched it on YouTube. Sure, some of the comments weren’t too polite, but guys were always going to be guys.

Do you want me to go first and spot you? Graham asked. Lisa was Graham’s girlfriend.

No way. I’m not going last. She kept glaring at Derek.

All right, all right, he said. He took the glasses off, letting them dangle from the keeper he wore around his neck. He could see better with them off. The optional dark lenses cut the desert glare, but it was shady in this slot canyon. There, are you happy now?

Yeah, thanks.

As she turned around and squatted at the edge of the rock face, one leg reaching down for a foothold, Derek did have to admit that Lisa had a nice ass, especially in those stretchy shorts. He felt a momentary pang of regret that he wasn’t recording her descent for posterity. Posting her posterior for posteriority. He decided to keep his mouth shut and his eyes on Graham, who was watching from the top of the fall.

Derek and Graham had been hiking buddies since college. Lisa was a more recent addition. She and Graham had been together for six months now. She was fit and could keep up with them on their longest hikes. But there was an awkwardness there. Derek had tried bringing girls he was dating, but they could rarely handle the heat or the distances or the rugged terrain. So it was usually the three of them, with Derek feeling like the third wheel.

Derek helped Lisa by guiding her boot to a foothold she couldn’t quite reach. Then she jumped from the last foothold into the deep sand of the wash. Thanks, she said.

No problem. Tall people reach, short people climb. It was an old joke. Derek was taller than either Lisa or Graham.

I’ve got this, Graham said, waving Derek off.

While Graham climbed down, Derek put the Google Glass back on and stared at the rock. Hey, this is Julian schist!

No schist? said Graham. Lisa groaned as he landed next to her. Hey, someone had to say it, we were all thinking it.

Babies! Lisa walked off down the dry wash.

The slot canyon wound its way through the mountains, its walls looming above them at first, letting in little daylight, then gradually descending to meet them as they came out of the mountains and into the sun-blasted badlands beyond. They marched along the sandy drainage, the toes of their boots leaving deep U-shaped divots. Derek took the lead, announcing the distance to Carrizo Creek up ahead at regular intervals.

Even for the desert, this was a barren spot. Back in the mountains there had been ocotillos and cholla cacti. Here, the clay of the mud hills was too alkaline to support much other than the occasional desert holly. Derek thought the plant looked barely alive with its dull gray leaves.

As the mud hills petered out into low mounds of earth at eye level, they came across a plant with a brilliant white flower.

Look! said Lisa. A desert lily.

She took her pack off and began rummaging through it, but Derek was already kneeling next to it, focusing his glasses on the star-shaped flower with its yellow stamens and the long, deep green leaves growing from the base of the stalk. The leaves looked somehow reptilian.

You’re right, Lisa, he said. "Hesperocallis undulata, also known as ajo lily."

Of course I’m right. Here, let me get a picture.

She’d finally dragged an old-style digital SLR out of her pack, removed it from its case, and pulled off the lens cap. A lot of useless trouble, Derek thought. Already got it. You can grab it from my Facebook page.

I’ll take my own, thanks. And I didn’t need your glasses to tell me what it is.

Maybe not. But you’ve got a flower book in your pack, right?

Of course.

So what’s the difference? I don’t have to go digging through my pack and then I don’t have to hunt through pages to find what I’m looking for.

Yeah, you’re Mr. Hands-Free with that thing. But I already know a lot of the flowers by heart. Pulling out the book and reading about them helps me to remember the new ones.

But why bother remembering them? It’s all right here. His gesture was ironic, tapping the frame of the Glass instead of his temple. The tiny earphones dangling from the earpieces jiggled with the movement.

Except that’s not your memory, it’s Google’s. What happens if you break your Glass, or the feed is slow? I’d rather keep my own memory, thanks.

It’s not anything new, Derek said. This has been going on since the invention of the printing press.